‘I think you have seen many living proofs to the contrary,’ he answered. ‘But pride may strangle a love which is not shared; it is a violent death, but a sure one.’
‘Why will men always talk of love?’ she said, with some impatience. ‘After all, how little place it takes up in real life! ambition, society, amusement, politics, money-making, a hundred things, take up a hundredfold more space.’
‘It is not to every one the unnecessary molecule that it is to Madame Napraxine,’ said Othmar. ‘You have seen a glass of water touched by a single drop of quinine? It is only a drop, but it embitters the whole glassful. So do the attachments of life embitter it.’
‘If you put the drop in, no doubt,’ said Princess Napraxine, drily.
‘Or if some one else put it in,’ muttered Othmar, ‘before one knows what one drinks.’
‘Oh! one must never let others meddle with one, even in drinking a glass of water,’ replied his tormentor. She knew very well that he meant to reproach her, but she bore the reproach lightly. If the remembrance of her embittered any man’s existence it was not her fault; it was the fault of those who would not be content with adoring her as the poor people of this sea-shore adored their Madonna shut away behind a glass case.
‘By the way, Othmar, have you not a villa here?’ she said, suddenly remembering the fact. ‘I believe you have five hundred and fifty-five houses altogether, have you not? Is there not some place near Nice that belongs to you?’
‘S. Pharamond? Yes. It is where I slept last night. My father bought some olive and pine wood and built the house in the midst of them. It has a fine view seaward.’
‘Then we shall be neighbours?’